LOUISVILLE, Ky. - There's a rising number of women being booked behind bars in prison and in county jails in Kentucky; mothers aren't exempt from that trend.

According to the Vera Institute of Justice, in 2015, the average number of women in jail in Kentucky nearly tripled the national average. When mothers are locked away, families can break down. Children can be impacted, and the foster system stressed. One woman and mother who spent time in jail says the impacts could be softened, if people focused less on shaming women, and more on helping those willing to try to recover from addiction. 

Amanda Heineman speaks to what she feels is gender inequality, in the mindset of Kentuckians toward inmates: "it's worse for [mothers]. As fathers, you get street credit. As mothers, you get shame."

When Heineman began her six year span in and out of jail in northern Kentucky, she had daughters ages 4, 6, and 7. She says she did time for drugs, but now celebrates her success of being sober for about 6 and a half years, and says she has not touched meth during the time since her release from jail. 

Heineman experienced losing custody of her children. They lived with her aunt and grandmother when they were taken from her, left to visit her in jail. "It was heartbreaking. My life revolves around them, and you know, I didn't wake up one day and be like 'I don't want to be a mom anymore.' It was really tough," Heineman explains. 

She says her kids were her motivation to change, as is the case for many women behind bars. 

"Children love their mother. No matter what my mother has done, I love her. And that's all my children wanted, was to be back with their mom. And thank God I was able to get help when I needed and everybody didn't give up on me and just throw me away," says Heineman. 

However, she adds that it's tough to overcome the shame that's put on incarcerated moms. "The stigma is, if you go to jail and you have kids, you're a bad person - especially for the mothers," says Heineman. 

According to a study done at the University of Kentucky, it's also hard for mothers to beat the system that can work against them. Chris Flaherty, a professor at the College of Social Work, helped to interview groups of incarcerated moms in the study 'Throwaway Moms: Maternal Incarceration and the Criminalization of Female Poverty,' and found women give up on getting their children back. There's the Adoption and Safe Family Act law (ASFA), that says mothers lose their rights to their kids if the children are not in their custody for 15 months of the last 22 - and the average prison sentence for women in Kentucky at the time of the study 10 years ago, was 18 months. 

"The policy pus these parents in a bind as far as being able to maintain custody and be reunited with their children," says Flaherty. "Is that always the answer when we have incarcerated moms, to take their children away, place them in foster care or even with relative placement? Many times, these women come from places where their parents or extended relatives face challenges or issues maybe with poverty- addiction." 

That's why Flaherty and Heineman will argue, it's not always best for the children to be separated from their mother, indefinitely. Heineman wants to see more of a focus on resources for women to beat addiction and be reunited with their kids.